7
Tiel
December
Ihated time zones.
More specifically, I hated that time zones made it impossible for me and Ellie to get on the phone when one of us wasn't running to a sound check or falling asleep. The European leg of her band's tour was packed with performances—they often had two shows each day—and now we were resorting to email.
I hated email, too.
It wasn't our mode of communication. Me and Ellie, we were auditory in nature. When we were together, our conversations were laced with belted-out lyrics and hummed melodies because that was our native tongue.
I wanted Ellie in my ear while I thumbed through dresses because there was no possible way I could choose one without her real-time input. I needed her talking the crazy out of me.
Okay, perhaps I was exaggerating the dress issue. Riley insisted that I'd love the atelier co-op where a friend from RISD was developing a new line of funky formal wear, and that did sound intriguing. Andy and I had a dinner and dress-shopping date lined up for tomorrow night, and I knew I was in good hands with her taste and Riley's recommendation.
Andy knew we were shopping for The Dress, although she didn't know The Day was right around the corner. For all her intensity and precision, she was pleasantly laid-back when it came to operating without complete information. Whenever I told her I didn't know, or didn't want to discuss something, she shrugged and moved on as if it was a non-issue.
I would have given anything for her kind of calm because the crazy? Yeah, that wasn't going away.
I didn't want to feel this way. I wanted to wrap up the fall semester without a bucketful of regret over my complete lack of meaningful research and paltry publication totals. I wanted to find heartfelt Christmas gifts for my future in-laws, and finally succeed at sending holiday cards. And more than anything else, I wanted a taste of the bride experience.
Never once did I believe that walking away from my mother's dining room table would result in a clean break. Oh no, I knew better than that. No repossession of self was ever complete without watching as the roots snapped, receded, shriveled.
And it fuckingached.
At first there were voicemails. My father, my sister, my Aunt Daphne. Some of my cousins called, but I knew they were primarily interested in a spin on the drama llama.
I deleted the messages without listening but that didn't mean I wasn't curious. What were they so insistent on sharing with me? Was it anger? Rejection? Sorrow? Or was it something else altogether? Did they even comprehend the reality of it? After all these years, it was possible that everyone else experienced that day as one in a long line of "Tiel, you're a mess!" incidents, and nothing more than that.
There were emails, too, and that was another reason to hate email.
Sam had found me in the showers-turned-studio space at the firehouse last week, fighting back tears as I read a message from Agapi about the pain and anguish I was causing our parents, and it wasn't going to surprise her if one of them suffered a heart attack or stroke and died as a result of the misery I'd inflicted upon them. Oh, and I was a fat, stuck-up bitch with a fake engagement ring.
From that point forward, I handed my phone to Sam whenever I saw notifications from my family, and he read and removed them for me. Most of the time, he offered a quick shake of his head while he scowled at the screen, and that was his way of telling me not to worry about the message.
Instead of worrying, I got swept up in the final weeks of classes before winter break, and tasked myself with building The Best Wedding Playlist Ever. It was all Van Morrison, The Lumineers, Jack Johnson, Neil Young, Ed Sheeran, Ellie Goulding, Mumford & Sons, Corinne Bailey Rae, David Gray, and The Fray. It wasn't enough to create a playlist; I was also obsessed with recording my own versions of these tracks and forcing my syrupy love songs down the unwitting throats of my YouTube subscribers.
But it didn't diminish the phantom limb pain that radiated through my body as the messages tapered off, finally grinding to a halt in the most screeching silence I'd ever heard because I knew it wasover. I was a train wreck, a disappointment, a cautionary tale, and I didn't belong to my family anymore.
That was when crazy came to town and set up the circus.
Sam had tolerated my ups and downs without much more than an arched eyebrow for weeks. Sympathy shone in his eyes every time I launched into extensive arguments about lazy undergrads or laundry soap that left our clothes smelling of grape juice or our inability to agree on a wedding cake. His touches were longer, deeper, and every day began and ended with him fucking me until I lost the power of speech.
It was his attempt at replacing what I'd lost, at tattooing unequivocal love into every fiber of us until everything else faded away, and I doubted that I'd ever be able to properly acknowledge what he was doing for me. And it was that deep sense of gratitude that held my wobbly moods in such sharp relief. I'd been irritable and impatient and aching, and willing to argue about anything that crossed my path, and he was taking every punch I could throw.
I knew I was funneling my hurt into misplaced anger but it felt like a rock rolling down a mountain, out of my hands and gaining speed and mass until itwasthe mountain, earth and stone and sky all ambling downward until it crashed.
UntilIcrashed.
Leafingthrough the mail after the most boring department meeting in the history of department meetings, I stopped when I found a large envelope from my bank. I tore into it, expecting to see new policies and disclosure statements, but found a letter stating that my student loans had been paid in full.
I reread the letter until the words stopped making sense. Eventually, I dialed the number on the top of the page and waited to be connected with a real human person who could explain this madness. She confirmed that the letter was correct, thanked me for my business, and ended the call before I could mumble out a "Thank you."
Glancing around the kitchen, I spotted Sam's phone and keys on the table. Letter in hand, I went in search of him, and stopped first in his workshop before heading to the basement gym. I heard the rhythmic pounding of his feet against the treadmill before I rounded the corner, and if I hadn't been dumbstruck by the dissolution of my debt, I would have admired the graceful coil and stretch of his shoulders, or the light sheen of sweat on his bare back, or his perfectly biteable rear end.
Okay, so I took a minute to admire those things.
